


Sarcasm, Summonings, and Snarky Jinn

by laallomri



Category: Nancy Drew (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 18:22:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7768339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laallomri/pseuds/laallomri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Why do you wear that?" he asked.</p><p>"For fun," she said flatly. "I really enjoy having people yell profanities at me and ask me intrusive questions that they think they already have the answers to."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sarcasm, Summonings, and Snarky Jinn

The fifth time Jamila spoke to Sonny Joon was the first time he ever mentioned what most people asked about right away.

"Why do you wear that?" he asked.

Jamila looked up from the textbook she was consulting. For a moment she truly had no idea what he was talking about—in her mind's eye she still saw the painted walls and scorching sun of Ramses II's Egypt, still heard his (entirely imagined) words as he tasked her ancestor with restoring his queen to him (what did ancient Egyptian sound like, anyway? In her mind it had the harshness of Russian and the pops of Hindi and the flow of Arabic, mixed with the vaguely twee sound that entered her head whenever Sonny texted her a string of emojis as indecipherable as hieroglyphs).

"For fun," she said flatly. "I really enjoy having people yell profanities at me and ask me intrusive questions that they think they already have the answers to."

"Oh." Sonny frowned. "That seems like a strange reason."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes and returned to her textbook.

.^.

"So I've thought about it," Sonny announced as Jamila came into the classroom, "and I think you were being sarcastic about why you wear that."

Jamila hefted the large urn she was holding onto one of the desks. "What ever would you think that for?"

"Well, partly because you sounded like it," he said, helping her push the other desks away from the one with the urn on it, "and partly because you threatened to punch out the teeth of that old man who yelled at you on our way here." The desk he was moving gave an ominous creaking sound and teetered. He stood back and watched it overturn, then shrugged and went to move another desk. "I didn't know old people's voices could carry so well from a moving car."

"Yes, it's amazing how robust a person can be if he has enough hate in him," she agreed. "Also, kindly leave as many of these desks intact as you can."

"It's not broken," he assured her, kicking the side of the overturned desk. As he did so one of the legs snapped in half. "Oh. I guess it is."

Jamila made another mental note in her list of expenses related to finding Nefertari's tomb, and three more notes in her list of reasons to never leave Sonny unsupervised for more than five minutes at a time.

As he endeavoured to reattach the leg of the desk ("if only we had duct tape! Duct tape fixes everything. Did you know I wore a duct tape space suit to prom?"), Jamila took her mother's letter out of her bag and flipped to the last page. 

I cannot tell you everything here, in case this letter falls into the wrong hands. There is a friend, however, who can tell you what you need to know--more accurately, in fact, than I ever could, for he was there when Ramses II assigned to us this task, and has been there for each generation's attempt at fulfilling it...

Beneath this was a code, one that, upon deciphering, had told Jamila of the importance of what she had formerly thought was merely a family heirloom and, somewhat puzzlingly, had given her what looked like a recipe. It had taken her a month to put it all together, but now she had the urn, she had the necessary quantities of each ingredient, and she had her mother's instructions. Now all that was left was for her to try it out.

"Sonny," she said, interrupting his monologue on the merits of duct tape space suits versus aluminum foil space suits, "I need you to be quiet for a minute."

"Oh, are you doing it now?" He abandoned the desk and joined her by the urn. "This is so cool!"

"Mm-hm," Jamila agreed, only half listening. She peered into the urn, which was short and wide and patterned with flames, then nodded to herself and began pouring in the ingredients.

"I can't believe we're doing this!"

Turmeric, salt, the feather of a bird."Mm-hm."

"In fact," he said, sounding much more subdued, "I can't believe we're doing this. Is this even allowed?"

Stir twice clockwise, thrice counterclockwise. "No," Jamila said, setting aside the wooden spoon.

Sonny grinned. "Is it legal?"

Cloves, ash, the hair of a cat. "Likely not."

His grin widened. "Is it dangerous?"

Stir twice counterclockwise, thrice clockwise. "Extremely."

He bounced up and down, so much so that she couldn't tell if he was excited or in dire need of using the bathroom. Knowing Sonny, it was probably both. "This is awesome! This is the coolest thing I've done since--"  
"Sonny, be quiet!" 

Her warning was pointless, as he had already heard it: a faint hissing sound, like water over a fire, issuing from within the urn.

For a moment they were both silent. Jamila squinted at her mother's instructions, frowning.

"Shouldn't there be smoke?" Sonny whispered.

"No," Jamila replied in full voice. "Jinn are made of smokeless fire. And there's no point in whispering."

"I just feel like I should," he said, still whispering. "I know he can probably hear us anyway, but it just makes me feel better."

She did not answer; she was still reading over her mother's instructions.

He might need some coaxing, thirteen ought to do the trick...

Jamila stirred thrice more counterclockwise, and then—

"Is that singing?" Sonny asked incredulously, forgetting to whisper.

Jamila grinned. “That it is.” She peered into the urn, then jumped back with a squeak. “Oh! I’m so sorry!”

“AS YOU SHOULD BE!” shouted a voice from within. “HAVEN’T YOU EVER HEARD OF KNOCKING?” And then, muttering—“Where’s my robe—young people these days have no manners at all, honestly—it’s nothing like it was back in my day—if you barged into a room like that in the nineteenth dynasty you’d be left in the desert to be locust lunch”—a thud, followed by what sounded like a curse—“a jinn can’t even take a bath in peace—”

A moment later the jinn climbed out of the top of the urn and sat on the edge, still muttering and rubbing a rising bump on his head. He was sand-colored and small enough to fit in a man’s palm, with dark eyes that glowed like coals behind a pair of cat-eye spectacles.

He eyed the pair standing before him, Sonny with suspicion, Jamila with interest.

“Hi,” said Sonny, with an appreciative look at his spaceship-patterned bathrobe. “I like your robe.”

The jinn ignored him. “You look like your mother,” he said abruptly.

“Thank you,” said Jamila. 

“It wasn’t a compliment,” the jinn replied. “She was annoying.”

“What do her looks have to do with that?” Sonny asked.

“Everything,” said the jinn. “She was annoyingly pretty. Makes a jinn self-conscious.” He stopped rubbing the top of his head and crossed his arms. “So. I expect you want to know about the tomb.”

Jamila nodded.

“Is he allowed to hear it? Or should I wait for him to leave?”

Jamila waved a hand at Sonny. “It’s up to him.”

“Really? I can stay?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “Of course, if you do stay and hear everything, I’ll have to kill you afterwards. But it’s your decision.”

“Ah.” Sonny backed away towards the door. “You know, I just had this sudden urge to go out into the hallway and…er…count bricks. Or something.”

“Atta girl,” said the jinn as Sonny went out. “You’ve got your mother’s spunk, too. By the way, is that his real hair?”

.^.

“You never answered my question.”

“Yes, Sonny,” Jamila deadpanned, waving for him to come back into the room. “Everything went well and I have the information I need and the jinn didn’t try to murder me in your absence. Thank you for asking after my welfare.” She handed him her bag. “Hold this while I take the urn back to the car.”

“Can I drive this time?” he asked as he followed her outside.

“No,” she replied over her shoulder.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t plan on dying until after I’ve found Nefertari.” She opened the trunk with her foot (“fancy footwork, my friend!” “’tis nothing but a paltry pas, my pal”) and put the urn in its bed of blankets. “Do you even have a license?”

“Does it have to be valid?” At the sight of her expression he went around the passenger side, resigning himself to another trip full of rolling the window up and down and rummaging through the glove compartment and making fun of her music selection. “Are you ever going to answer my question?”

Jamila sat back in her seat with a sigh. “About my hijab?”

“Yes.”

“Fine.” She rubbed at a worn spot on the steering wheel. “Why do you dye your hair?”

“So the Annunaki can find me more easily.”

Jamila stared. “That…is not what I expected you to say.”

Sonny shrugged. “It never is.”

“Fair point.” She sighed again. “Okay. I like having control over what people see of me. It’s a…expression thing. The freedom to keep my body to myself. Does that make sense?”

Sonny nodded. “Like the Annunaki. When they first meet people they don’t show them their glowing eyes and luminescent fangs. They save those features for those who are privileged enough to see them in their true form.”

For a long moment Jamila squinted at him.

“I can never tell when you’re being serious,” she said finally.

“Me neither,” he said, grinning. “Can we get going? I’m starving.”


End file.
